n. 2,
1895, says, "The contract was given to an enterprising Yankee, who
built a few miles, swindled the shareholders, fleeced the colony, and
then decamped, leaving as a legacy an unfinished road, an interminable
lawsuit, and a damaged colonial credit."

I happen to know another side of the question; and it does not become
the Englishmen interested in that railway matter to talk of "Yankee
swindlers."

When Sir Robert Thorburn became Premier of Newfoundland, he took the
first step necessary to make this line of some value to the tax-payers
by extending it twenty-seven miles to Placentia, the old French "La
Plaisance." This line was of immense value to St. John's, because it
gave the people of that city a convenient winter harbor which is
always open, by which they have an easy communication with Canada and
the United States; and I hope the time will soon come when we shall
have steamers running from Boston, touching at the French Island of
St. Pierre, and then going to Placentia.

What were the English diplomatists doing meanwhile? In 1890 they were
arranging a _modus vivendi_ with the French government about the
lobster fisheries. The Tories were in power, and Sir James Ferguson
was the Under-secretary of State. This gentleman's sentiments towards
the United States have been recorded by the Hon. James G. Blaine. In
his "Twenty Years of Congress," Vol. II., page 481, foot-note, he
writes: Sir James Ferguson declared in the House of Commons, March 14,
1864, that "wholesale peculations and robberies have been perpetrated
under the form of war by the generals of the Federal States; and worse
horrors than, I believe, have ever in the present century disgraced
European armies have been perpetrated under the eyes of the Federal
government, and yet remain unpunished. These things are as notorious
as the proceedings of a government which seems anxious to rival one
despotic and irresponsible power of Europe in its contempt for the
public opinion of mankind." These words need no commentary to-day.
They show us pretty clearly the character of the man who then spoke
them, and will prepare us for his treatment of the Newfoundland
question. On March 20, 1890, he made the following statement in the
House of Commons:--

"The Newfoundland government was consulted as to the terms of the
_modus vivendi, which was modified to some extent to meet their
views_; but it was necessary to conclude it without referring it to
them in its fi